FACING THE CHALLENGE OF THE PANDEMIC HEAD ON, BUT WITHOUT RENOUNCING SUSTAINABILITY GOALS

With 2020 is now behind us, we can reflect on what was certainly a turbulent year as a result of the coronavirus crisis. It was a year that brought huge changes to our sector. Nevertheless, at SP GROUP we are satisfied with how we managed the situation and with the financial results obtained. We are pleased to announce we closed the year with a total turnover of €157M for the group (4% more than the previous year), and we managed to keep our exports stable at around €53M.

The health crisis resulting from the pandemic has created new needs in society, and our raw material – plastic – has played an essential role in counterattacking and neutralising the propagation of the virus. SP GROUP is glad to have been able to demonstrate one of its greatest strengths is its flexibility and capacity to adapt its production and business processes as needed.  With more people eating at home during quarantine, the demand from our clients increased considerably. Taking up the challenge, we stepped up our rate of production and even redesigned the process to meet market demands.

Other important figures to highlight are the increase in staff (up 5.25% in Spain and 2.54% over the group as a whole), as well as an investment of €8M for the period 2020/21 to buy new machinery. Our purchases included a Flexo Miraflex printer, a 7-layer blown film extruder, and two laminators. It is also important to point out that new R&D projects have continued, such as Project BIOTERMIC, seeking new recyclable and/or biodegradable packaging that can withstand high temperatures and is suitable for the meat industry; and Project RECICLACTIVE, which is also aimed at finding sustainable and recyclable active materials.

All this reflects the rising trend of the company in recent years, and demonstrates the robustness and importance of our position as a market leader in sustainability within the packaging sector. In the words of CEO, Francisco Bernal: ‘Our strength resides in our continuous innovation, our endless search for sustainable structures and state-of-the-art materials that allow us to continue advancing, while complying with the guidelines set out by the European Commission. In short, we are going to continue working to achieve versatile, personalised, eco-friendly packaging’.

As we look ahead to 2021, we will continue to strengthen our position and forge ahead as we have been doing in recent years.